Chapter 2: La La Laparas

              The skies were clear and blue that morning as we set out, the sun beating down on us. The wind was almost non-existent. We had left my house early, after escaping my mothers begging and pleading us not to. Now we where a few miles away from the town, heading east to Ember City, and to our next gym battle.

"Well we’ll need a good water pokemon for the next gym. It’s a fire element gym and we’ll beat em up quick with a water pokemon." I suggested as we came to a lake.

"Yeah. We should look over there." Maria suggested, pointing twords the lake.

            So we walked over and sat down, ready to get out or fishing rods. But a yell from far off stopped us. Being the curious person I was, I went to check it out. I saw a few young boys and a Laparas. The boys had large sticks in their hands and where yelling at the Laparas angerly. The Laparas was severly hurt and had maney cuts and bruises on its body.

"Hey!" I yelled at them "Knock it off!"

One of the boys turned to me at my yell.

"Yeah? Who’s going to make us?" he asked in a cocky tone.

"Me! Flamey, Ember!" I ordered. Flamepaw fired a Ember Attack at the ground infront of the men, making them fall flat on their faces.

They ran off, dropping their sticks in the prosses. I ran down to the wounded transport pokemon.

It whined and shied away from me when I got near. I slowed my pace and nelt down to it slowly.

"It’s alright. I won’t hurt you." I said in an alsomt whisepr like voice. I gently put my hand on its long blue neck and it whinced at first then relaxed.

"See? I’m going to get you better." I said and took a Max Potion out of my backpack.

"You have to drink this though." I said and offered the medication bottles’ serenge tip to the Laparas. It looked at me cautiously but allowed me to put it in its mouth and drank the medicine when I put it in.

"Good, now you just rest." I said. I looked up to the top of the grassy hill to see Maria with Vulpix, looking worriedly down at us.

"You need to go in here so we can get you to a pokemon center." I said, holding up a pokeball.

I seemed to have gained the pokemnos trust since, after a few cautious looks, it went inside the pokeball. I hooked it onto my belt and ran to the top of the hill. I told them what was going on and we ran all the way to the pokemno center, top speed. By the time we got their it burned my lungs to breath. I gave Nurse Joy the Lapras and a Chansey took care of my almost killing myself with the run. A Blissey nursed Maria back to health.

A few hours later, in wich Maria and I ate something, took short napps and played at least 50 or so games of "Go Fish", Nurse Joy came out of the back room, a bright look on her face.

"Well your Laparas is doing fine." She insured us.

" Whoa hang on! You said ‘my’ Laparas." I said hastily.

"That’s right. You put it in your pokeball so its your Laparas." She said and led me to a large tank of water where Laparas swam. I went out and sat on the edge, Maria and Vulpiz waiting inside with Nurse Joy.

Laparas swam up to me quickly and rubbed it giant head against me.

" Hi, Laparas. Nurse Joy said isnce I put you in a pokeball that tenchniquely you’re my pokemon." I said to it and waited for its reaction. It looked confused slightly.

"Are you okay with that?" I asked. Laparas seemed to be thinking and then smiled

"Laaaaaaa!" she cried and swam up to me, putting it head down to me for me to pet. I did, happy that I had a new friend.

"You think you’ll be okay meeting my other pokemon?" I asked, wanting her to get used to the team and its members.

       She seemed worried and aprehensive at first but desided to trust that my pokemon wouldn’t be mean to her and nodded.

"Okay guys, come on." I called over to where they were waiting and they ran over, but slowed once they got close.

"This is Firepaw, my first pokemon." I said, picking her up. Laparas greeted her with a happy call.

"Vul Vilpix." Firepaw introduced herself and wagged her soft fluffy tails happily.

"And this is Sentert. I cought him when I was going back to my house." I said and held up sentret, who offered his tail and Laparas grabbed it gently in her mouth and shook it, like the pokemon version of a handshake for a pokemon with no tail.

"You’ll be a lot of help in my gym battle Laparas. I’m glad I met you." I said and petted her nose.

"La!" she answered smiled and then she did somthnig I never would have explected. She grabbed me by the back of my hood and sat me onto her back, between two of her shell spikes and started to swim around the pool.

"You’re right. I’d better get used to riding you soon." I said and hung onto the spike that was directly infront of me. She swam to the side of the pool and let Firepaw and Sentret jumped on, the Vulpix sitting on her head on Sentert sitting on its tail on one of her shell spikes.

"Isn’t this fun guys?" I asked the two pokemon and they sounded a happy agreement in their own languages.

             We swam around the pool like that for hours until Nurse Joy came out and told us to come in and eat something. So I get off Laparas and put her in the pokeball, since I knew she wouldn’t want to be alone in the pool. I jogged inside and to the front lobby, where I saw Maria sitting at one of the tabels, waiting for me. I sat down across from her and greeted her with a smile.

"How was your ride?" she asked as one of the Chanseys brought us some vegitable soup and pokemon food.

"Really fun! You should come some time. Your going to have to get used to it when we go to the Gora Island." I pointed out.

             The Gora Islands was a group of five islands where really rare pokemon live and there are gyms there, where you earn a set of five badges, the Gora Badges, needed to participate in the Gora Pokemon Tornement, and hopefully win the grand prize, The Gora Cup.

"Yeah, I guess so." She said, but seemed aprehencive about the idea of the trip.

"Hey, whats wrong?You got all quiet all of a sudden." I notced and leaned forward, pressing for an asnwer.

"I don’t like the water very much." She confessed and blushed, as if she was embarassed by it.

"Oh that’s all? Don’t worry! Laparas will be sure to keep you safe. And if we catch any flying pokemon we can fly part of the way." I said and Maria seemed to relax and began to eat.

"You know, Ember City is populated by lots of rare fire pokemon. You should catch a few to beat the grass gym leader. We’ll face him soon you know." I said. Ember city was really the only place in all of Tohjo where you could catch wild fire pokemon.

"Yeah. We’d better not pass up the chance." Maria said, agreing with me.

          We continued to eat our dinner while chatting with eachother. We finsihed slowly and by the time we where done it was curfue time and Nurse Joy made us go to sleep. We found a room and bedded down, falling asleep quickly.

Chapter 3